Walking the Camino

by Tony Kevin

  Hope’s true gage: what made pilgrimage so powerful an expression of Christian belief was the hope it bore within it, the firm belief that to make such arduous and dangerous journeys to faraway holy places would carry great spiritual and temporal rewards: God’s forgiveness of one’s sins, the promise of eternal salvation; the healing of disease or disability in oneself or in one’s loved ones; the hope of reconciliation and forgiveness from those one has wronged in life. Without those firm beliefs, the privations and risks of pilgrimage would have been pointless suffering.

  Thus, in these six tightly drafted lines, Raleigh captures the essence of the medieval philosophy of pilgrimage. How, I wondered, do we modern-day pilgrims measure up to his simple message? A few pilgrims are happy to follow his example, delighting in the spontaneity of just throwing a few clothes in a rucksack and heading off when the idea takes their fancy, trusting in God or Providence to help them on their way. Laurie Lee writes that, as a young man, he just walked out of the door of his mother’s house in England one midsummer morning and started walking towards Spain. This reminds me also of a charming story Sumption tells, of how Irish monks in the Dark Ages used to float off from Ireland to preach the gospel to pagan Europe, in little coracle boats without sails or oars, trusting that God would steer their fragile craft to places where their work was most needed. Fortunately, the Gulf Stream would have helped most of them eventually to make a landfall somewhere in Europe. You can do the pilgrimage in that carefree spirit — I met a young Portuguese near Zamora who was moving fast, walking from Valencia to Santiago without maps, without a pilgrim credencial, with little money and the smallest of daypacks — and I know he got to Santiago, because other friends met him there later. But most of us would want to go with at least a little more preparation and resources.

  ***

  I will say something here, remembering as I sat through that long flight from Australia to Europe, how I had tried to prepare my body for long-distance endurance walking, about the care of feet, and about what a modern pilgrim might choose to carry. But if you’re impatient to start the walk with me, go straight to the next chapter and come back to read the rest of this chapter later.

  Long-distance walking on roads or paths for upwards of twenty kilometres a day, week after week, is not a normal sort of exercise. It is a high-intensity physical activity that makes particular demands on human bodies, just as long-distance running or mountain-climbing or high-energy ball games do. So our bodies need to be trained up for it beforehand, if the pleasure of the first weeks on the camino is not to be ruined by muscle stress and fatigue pains, or in the worst case physical breakdown and forced withdrawal. I found that the best way to prepare (about three months before setting out) was to start walking around home, preferably with a laden pack, increasing the distances each day. It is hard for most people to find the time or suitable paths near home to do this. Best are unpaved country lanes or footpaths, preferably not too even, to improve balance and flexibility, and to get your ankles accustomed to coping with movement over rough ground. Also, the hillier the better, to improve aerobic fitness and to get used to balancing the backpack going up and down slopes. Those who live in a big city may use its major avenues and large parks, walking off the paved paths onto grass as much as possible, and looking for slopes to go up and down. Big cities such as New York, Washington, London, or Ottawa have long jogging-trails through accessible, rough parkland (for example, in Central Park, Rock Creek Park, Hampstead Heath). A few longer weekend walks in real countryside, planning routes of two or three days, and walking at least six hours a day, are good training. I was lucky: my hometown, Canberra, is ringed with nature parks on surrounding hills that offer a diverse range of rough walking trails.

  Most mornings during the ten weeks before I left, I would get up early and do five to fifteen kilometres fast walking before breakfast. By the time I left home, I had over 500 kilometres under my belt, and presumed I was already quite fit. That was not quite the case, but at least I had gone some of the way.

  It is a good idea to lose as much weight as possible before setting off, using the mental spur of the upcoming challenge to help motivate a smaller food intake. Walkers inevitably lose weight on the camino, but it’s more enjoyable if you can get down to a fit walking weight before starting. I didn’t, and I paid for it later.

  Walking in the socks and boots that will be used on the camino prepares feet for what is in store. Although walking two to three hours a day doesn’t fully condition feet for walking six to eight hours a day, it helps. As to footwear, some walkers swear by traditional German-style leather hiking boots that need to be broken in, but some prefer modern lightweight athletic cross-trainers. I opted for a compromise — lightweight hiking boots, a cross-trainer-style synthetic trail boot with stiff, lugged rubber soles and high side-ankle support. They were comfortable from first wearing, dried quickly (Goretex-lined), and wore quite well. I used two pairs in sequence, and each pair was good for 600 kilometres. Both wore the heels right down to the slate inserts, but I had new rubber heels glued on when I got back home.

  On a hot trail like the Vía de la Plata in summer, your feet will sweat and swell; so it is best to size the boots a little loose, while wearing two pairs of lightweight synthetic walking socks. Leave the traditional heavy woollen outer socks at home. By always walking in two pairs of socks, the outer sock sticks to the boot and the inner to the skin; this means that most of the rubbing that would cause blisters takes place between the two sock layers, rather than between socks and skin. Take at least four pairs of such socks for two changes a day, a good talcum powder to dry moist feet, and a good foot cream to soften hard, scaly feet and prevent cracking around the heels. Pampering feet, keeping them clean and dry, and massaging foot cream in generously after a day’s walking, means happy feet — the most critical element in the enjoyment of walking.

  After the day’s trail walking was over, I would change into open, lightweight leather sandals — not unlike what medieval pilgrims and monks wore — for strolling in villages or towns. Sandals aerate and relax the feet, refreshing them for the next day. You can buy such sandals either before leaving or easily and cheaply anywhere in Spain.

  ***

  On my camino route, I never camped out. Pilgrims were few, and there was always cheap accommodation in village bars or pensións, or in pilgrim albergues, so there was no need to carry a tent or sleeping bag or groundmat. I had a cotton liner sleeping bag and a baby pillow; but walkers in cooler seasons might want to take a lightweight sleeping bag for use in unheated albergues. I took a hammock, thinking it might be good for midday siestas on the trail, walking on in the cool of the evening. But I only used it twice, because I found that you want to complete your walking day as early as possible, and enjoy a real rest on a bed at the day’s destination. Though the siesta is a Spanish idea, siestas on the road don’t seem to fit the rhythm of a pilgrim’s day.

  Similarly, I didn’t carry food or a cooking stove. A bit of cold food in a carrybag — fruit, leftover bread, some jamón serrano or cheese — was useful for early breakfasts and snacks on the way. Sometimes, you could find a workmens’ café or bar open early in the morning for a fortifying coffee and tostada (toasted breadroll with jam).

  Thus the pack only held clothing, toiletries, essential pharmaceuticals and first-aid items, electronic gear of choice (for example, digital camera, radio-cassette, or MP3 player, mobile phone), and essential documents. The weight of these sorts of items soon adds up, however.

  Most people take three sets of clothing: one to wear, and two to pack. Many invest in lightweight, synthetic hiking clothing, but I prefer the protection of heavier cotton-drill clothing, which made my pack a few kilograms heavier. Northern European pilgrims like to soak up the sun, stripping down to shorts and T-shirts at the first sign of warmth in the sun’s rays. As an Australian with a healthy respect for the medical risks to skin, I always wore long t
rousers and long-sleeved shirts. A woollen pullover was useful for cool evenings, and a hip-length showerproof Goretex-type jacket for any really rainy days. I also took a lightweight towel, and a light dressing gown or nightshirt for unisex dormitories; a broad-brimmed cotton hat with a chinstrap for windy days; and a swimming costume and bathing cap, to enjoy the hot baths or river swimming spots on the way.

  Pharmaceuticals and toiletries are a personal choice, but here are a few tips. I packed these items in three labelled leather bags (‘pharma’, ‘feet’, and ‘toiletries’), so I could easily find whatever I was looking for. Even the smallest Spanish village has a pharmacy, open in the early evenings and stocking a wide range of inexpensive generic medicines and drugs, so you don’t need to carry a lot of just-in case pharmaceuticals and toiletries. I found the pharmaceuticals I used most were ibuprofen (which goes under the brandnames of Nurofen, Panafen, etc.), which I found more effective than aspirin or paracetamol for relaxing tight muscles and easing joint pain, thus helping me get a better night’s sleep. Tiger Balm or similar liniment was effective, rubbed into sore ankles, calves, knees, shoulders. An asthma-reliever, hydrocortisone cream (Dermaid, Hydraderm, etc.), old-fashioned Vaseline for chafed skin in the tender parts, and lip balm were all put to good use. I carried — but hardly used — anti-allergenic hayfever tablets, antibiotic tablets, cold-sore cream, a cough and cold syrup, Vicks Vaporub, and sunburn cream. Those apprehensive about food upsets can carry anti-diarrhoea tablets and electrolyte-replacement salts, but every pharmacy sells these without prescription.

  My foot kit was simple: bandaids for the odd blister and, for bad blisters, locally made tiritas — large oval patches of synthetic skin that one puts on and forgets about. Nail-clippers, a good foot powder, a tube of foot cream, and a roll of lambswool (which Boots The Chemists sell at London Airport) completed the foot kit.

  Toiletries: the basics — toothbrush, safety razor, toilet soap, clothes-washing soap or detergent, deodorant, sunglasses, and a spare pair of prescription glasses. You can buy most of these things on the way in village supermercados (general stores), so there is no need to load up with spare toothpaste, soap, etc. A shaving cream that works with cold water is useful for men — there won’t always be hot water in the mornings. It is good insurance to carry a couple of bath or basin plugs: it is remarkable how often these are missing in even the best pensións. Similarly an elastic travel clothesline and a few pegs are useful, as is a basic sewing-kit and earplugs.

  Other bits and pieces: the indispensable Swiss Army knife (but remember not to pack it in your carry-on bag, or it will be found and confiscated by airport security); a plastic spoon (handy for eating tubs of yogurt or custard or jelly); and bits of cord, spare laces, and a roll of packing tape for sending parcels home or on ahead in the post. Spanish post offices offer a wide range of sturdy padded envelopes and cardboard boxes, so you don’t need wrapping paper. If you standardise electronic equipment to run on AA-size batteries, replacement batteries can always be found even in the smallest village. I had a four-pixel digital camera with a large memory chip (enough room for 450 images), ideal for on-the-road photography and making it easy to delete rejected shots. In large towns like Salamanca, there are shops that will transfer all your images onto a CD that can be sent home.

  For documents, I bought a big, heavy-duty, plastic waterproof envelope with a neckstrap, designed to keep a trailmap or guidebook dry in the rain. It never rained for me, but the case protected my key documents from trail wear and tear: passport, air tickets and travel insurance, next-of-kin contact data, favourite family photos (laminated for durability), pilgrim credencial, roadmaps, guidebook, photocopied city maps, pens, envelopes and writing paper, spare postcards and stamps, pocket diary, Spanish dictionary, Berlitz phrasebook, and instruction booklets for my camera, MP3 player, and mobile phone. This document case was the heaviest item in my rucksack.

  With all this stuff on my back, I was a long way from a medieval pilgrim’s few belongings. If I had been confident of my spoken Spanish and had not wanted to carry the technology to communicate with my family and record my journey, the weight could have been a lot less.

  To carry this sort of weight, you need a real rucksack — that is, a backpack engineered for trail walking. A lot of backpacks for sale nowadays are really little more than soft carry-bags with shoulder-straps and a waist-belt; they are fine for short walks around towns from airport or bus station to hotel, but not designed for long-distance walking. A 55-litre or 65-litre rucksack is big enough, because you do not want to carry more than 15 per cent of your body weight. The pack needs to fit well because, when loaded and adjusted, it should redistribute most of the packed weight down from the shoulder-straps onto the hipbones. So a strong molded waistbelt and a well-designed adjustable backframe are the most important parts of the rucksack.

  I bought a Berghaus Antaeus — sold as their ‘entry-level’ rucksack — and found it did the job really well. This pack has additional side and top pockets, double-zips above and below in the main compartment, and an inbuilt raincape. I also bought a waterproof rucksack liner bag — a heavy-duty plastic bag that rolls up and clipseals at the top. I’m sure it would have protected the contents from the heaviest downpour, but I never found out.

  When I started out from Granada, my pack weighed a foolishly heavy twenty-two kilograms. When I got to the first town with a post office, I got rid of about six kilograms by posting the parcels on ahead with my sleeping bag, sleeping mat, pullover, unneeded clothing, and books. It is really important to keep pack-weight as low as possible, resisting the temptation to pack that extra item ‘just in case’. With my body weight of ninety-four kilograms (at the start of the walk) and eighty-five kilograms (at the finish), a 16-kilogram pack was the maximum comfortable load I could carry. That included two kilograms for the two 1-litre water bottles when filled for a long day’s walk.

  In preparing the pack, it was important to pack tightly, to balance the weight between the left and right sides, and to concentrate the heaviest items in the centre of gravity of the pack — that is, around its middle and behind the small of the back. Putting heavy stuff at the bottom creates an uncomfortably heavy lump down behind your rear, and putting heavy stuff at the top increases problems of maintaining equilibrium and balance over rough ground.

  Lifting the laden pack onto the shoulders and taking it off are the times of greatest strain on straps and seams. To prevent rips and tears, I did this as seldom as possible and as gently as possible. Specialist shops that sell rucksacks will adjust the main pack straps at point of sale to suit your size and shape. On the road, you put on a laden pack by first resting it on the extended right or left knee (depending on whether you are right- or left-handed) with the backstraps facing you, and slipping the preferred first arm through its shoulder strap. Taking the weight on your shoulder, you gently swing the pack around behind, and loops the other arm into its shoulder strap. Then, lifting up the pack with both hands behind the back taking its weight, you can sit the straps evenly on the shoulders, making sure the back belt is sitting comfortably just above the hipbones, and then finally tighten the waistbelt strap as far as it will go. The chest strap is tightened as close as comfort allows, in order to stop the top of the pack from swaying. The small shoulder-top adjustment straps are kept as short as possible, for the same reason. Getting these fine adjustments right makes for comfortable walking. After a while, you forget that you are carrying a 16-kilogram pack.

  Water bottles are as essential for the modern as for the medieval pilgrim. I like the indestructible aluminium kind, but some prefer lightweight plastic bottles. It’s a good idea to have two water bottles of the same size (one litre or three-quarters of a litre), putting one in each side-compartment of the rucksack. That way you can drink from them in turn, keeping the water weight balanced. Some people like to sip water all the time; others take a healthy large swig every couple of hours. If the forme
r, you can carry the water bottle in a small handbag, along with guidebook and snack food, so that you don’t have to stop and take off the pack too often.

  I didn’t know all these things at the beginning of my walk, but I learned by experience and from others on the way, so I am sharing it here. Later in this book I offer some more ‘tradecraft’ advice about the pilgrim’s best friend on the trail — the walking staff — and about the benefits of breaking yourself in, walking gently and keeping within endurance limits, eating and drinking sensibly, having rest breaks, map-reading, and navigation.

  chapter four

  From Granada to Córdoba

  The walk began in Andalucia. I had arrived in Madrid on a Monday afternoon, after a long international flight from Australia with transfers in Frankfurt and London. Catching a fast metro train in from the super-modern Madrid International Airport, I arrived at a main city station just in time to catch the last-afternoon intercity Rapido train to Granada. As I tried out my first tentative Spanish phrases with the patient barman in the buffet car, the train glided across the darkening, barren high plains of La Mancha. I looked for Don Quixote’s famous canvas-sailed windmills, but could not find any. Then the train snaked its way up into the olive-clad mountains of Andalucia. By 10.00 pm I was sinking into an exhausted sleep in my first Spanish pensión, chosen at random not far from the Granada railway station.

  The next morning, awakening before dawn, I walked up through the old city to see dawn breaking over the Alhambra with the still snow-covered peaks of the Sierra Nevada beyond — a glorious sight. I went to a busy little café-bar for an early breakfast of coffee, croissants, and an experimental cognac shared with local workmen. Then I found my way to my official pilgrimage starting point, the Real Monasterio de las Madres Commendatores de Santiago. The Mother Superior of this beautiful old convent was wearing the red cross of the Knights of Santiago on her habit, linking her order back to those knights who protected the camino. She received me in the convent reception hall after Mass, ceremonially stamping the first sello in my credencial. Because I was impatient to be on my way, I did no more sightseeing in Granada, but went straight back to the hotel to pick up my pack. I started walking out of the city, following Alison Raju’s guidebook instructions — which worked perfectly.